‘Maybe someone was going to meet him there?’ said Cooper.

‘Well, it’s possible. But Gavin had a look at the inquest report.’

‘And?’

‘There was some question over the testimony of a witness – a female motorist who was first at the accident scene and called 999. She told the traffic officers she’d seen someone about half a mile back, before she came on the crash site, which was just around a bend. She saw somebody jogging near the side of the road. It was pitch dark, of course. Unfortunately, she had no reason to take notice at the time – it was before she knew there was a crash. She was just struck by the fact that the individual was running. And, most importantly, he wasn’t running along the verge but up the banking, as if he was heading across the fields away from the road. She had the impression he’d done that because he heard her car coming.’

‘Definitely a man?’

‘She was fairly confident about that.’

‘It’s very vague, Diane.’

‘That’s what the coroner thought. There was no convincing evidence that anyone was in the van with Richard Slack. The staff at the firm were interviewed, but they all said the same thing – Richard hadn’t asked them to go with him on the call.’

‘What are you saying?’

Cooper was still standing by his car when the organ started up in the crematorium chapel. Not ‘Abide With Me’, but something else that he couldn’t identify at first. The voices of the congregation coming in on the opening lines disguised the tune, rather than making it clearer.

‘It was a very late call,’ said Fry. ‘Three o’clock in the morning. I think Richard Slack wouldn’t have wanted to call out one of the casual staff. A family firm like that, I think he would have phoned his partner to do the job.’

‘Melvyn Hudson.’

‘Of course.’

‘Diane, even if your theory is correct, a passenger leaving the scene of an accident isn’t a major crime. If Hudson was in the van, he might have been injured himself. He might have been in shock or something.’

‘Like I said, this was a really late call. Early hours of the morning, in fact. There was no traffic around on that road at three a.m. The lady who found the crash was only on the road because she had to catch an early flight from East Midlands Airport and it was a shortcut from her home to the M1. As the coroner said, the absence of traffic was unfortunate. Because Richard Slack wasn’t killed immediately. He died from loss of blood, and from choking on his own vomit, as a result of the position he was left in after the crash.’

‘Oh, God.’

‘Exactly. The medical reports said he would most likely have survived, if only somebody had been on hand to put him into the recovery position and phone for an ambulance. But nobody was. And so Richard Slack died.’